Keypads

[Digeroo]

Does anyone know why the numbering system on computers goes from bottom to top and on phones goes from top to bottom.  Phones still had dials when adding machines first came along.  Does anyone know why they chose a difference system for phones it is so annoying.

[Digeroo]

[BarriedaleNick]

The general answer is that there is no real reason other than - "thats the way it is" but maybe...

Phone keypads came after the rotary dial and in that old system the 1 was at the top and 0 at the bottom.  The keypad just kept that format.
Keyboards  seem to have inherited the calculator layout which in turn was based on the mechanical cash regsiter format where 9 was at the top and 0 on the bottom..

more here http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2019/why-do-telephone-keypads-count-from-the-top-down-while-calculators-count-from-the-bottom-up

[Digeroo]

I had a later thought perhaps it was that the ABC had been allocated to the numbers.  It would not make much sense to have the alphabet the going from top to bottom.

It is just very difficult for someone like me who used a calculator keypad and then a computer to then switch to a mobile phone.

[retro]

Hmm, interesting.  I have no problem whatsoever switching between the keypad types.  I can type fast on a calculator or a reversed phone-style keypad, and it's a subconscious process.

If you'd like a bit of history, the push-button telephone was actually invented in the 1940s, tested in the 1950s and introduced to the public in 1963... here it is:



The first electronic calculators were computers.  In the 1950s, IBM introduced the IBM 608 calculator, a huge computer.  Whilst it was the first all-transistor calculator, the first calculator that resembled the device we know today was the Casio 14-A.  Still a huge beast, basically a desk, it had the keypad we all know:





So... the statement that phones still had dials when calculators came along isn't correct - the calculator had the keypad it does today in 1957, whereas the push-button phone wasn't released to the public  until 1963.

I don't think the calculator had much to do with cash registers, really.  If you look at an old till, the layout is nothing like the calculator keypad.  They often had the old lever buttons even in the 50s and 60s, and the first tills with a modern design had lots of buttons.  Actually, they weren't even standardized - here's an old NCR with a calculator layout:



It is, of course, possible that it's down to the Japanese Casio choosing one layout for their calculators, whilst Western in American chose the other!